The present disclosure relates generally to devices for absorbing or emitting light and to methods of making the same.
Since the inception of semiconductor technology, a consistent trend has been toward the development of smaller device dimensions and higher device densities. As a result, nanotechnology has seen explosive growth and generated considerable interest. Nanotechnology is centered on the fabrication and application of nano-scale structures, or structures having dimensions that are often 5 to 100 times smaller than conventional semiconductor structures. Nanowires are included in the category of nano-scale structures.
Nanowires are wire-like structures having at least one linear dimension (e.g., diameter) ranging from about 1 nm to about 1 μm. For some applications, it may be desirable that the wire-like structures have at least one linear dimension as large as 10 μm. Nanowires are suitable for use in a variety of applications, including functioning as conventional wires for interconnection applications or as semiconductor devices. Nanowires are also the building blocks of many potential nano-scale devices, such as nanoscale field effect transistors (FETs), p-n diodes, light emitting diodes (LEDs) and nanowire-based sensors, to name a few.